Long Description: The party, having a rough time with the denizens of the Ziggaraut, were trying to hole themselves up and get some much needed rest to recover their spells.

The worm-caller wasn't interested in letting hostiles camp out anywhere in its turf and kicked-in the barricaded door. It used the surprise round to cast Suggestion on the dwarf barbarian, who then took a definsive stance in front of the worm-caller. It then began assaulting the party with Mass inflict moderate wounds spells.

Ren, the party's Psion started bombing the Caller with Concussion Blasts, so the Wormcaller responded with a flamestrike that hit Ren, Mace (the dwarf favored soul), and Iggy (the halfling sorcerer). Iggy's pseudodragon was fired to an unholy crisp.

I had a plan for my PCs. After penetrating the Sodden Hold's warehouse, they slashed their way through mimics and invisible stalkers alike, didn't bother to let the prisoners out (fearing more doppelgangers, they actually had the warmage jam the locks on the cell doors with acid splashes), and sent the catfolk scout down to swim the flooded water control chamber (she deftly avoided the encounter with the octopus by using shadow jaunt to 'port up to the top of the control column). They gutted the trainee doppelgangers in the rooms, fought their way through the doubles in the octagonal room (and uncovered the double in their own ranks at the same time), and then decided to rest the night so as to regain spells and health.

They did this in the BOTTOM of the water control chamber. Upon hearing this plan discussed via the campaign mailing list, I began to plan with an evil grin on my face. My plan went something like this:

The party, feeling secure behind the fire trap on the door and the 50' drop, forget that there are villains with magic and collaborative team tactics too. Having swiftly determined that there is an abjuration on the door (by means of detect magic), Telakin will command his elite guards to make near-continuous distracting noises -- horrible pleading screams calling out for help, monstrous growls and roars, the sound of the adventurers' own voices making snide comments, singing annoyingly catchy songs (in perfect four-part harmony), whatever. They will do so at intermittent intervals, with unpredictable spans of silence as well as noise so that such activity is unpredictable.

During one of the bursts of noise, Telakin (in my campaign a wizard 8/barbarian 5/cleric 5) will take 10 minutes to lay down a glyph of warding on the corridor behind the fire trapped door. The glyph will strike anyone who doesn't follow the doppelgangers' deity (Xan Yae) with a lightning bolt (the spell-glyph can contain any 3rd level spell, so this will generate 8d6 electrical damage, starting with the triggering character, straight down the 5' wide entry corridor and out along the stone bridge).

Having set his own defensive trap, Telakin will attempt casting dispel ward on the fire trapped door. (He got through on the first casting.) He then buffed his own troops mostly with cleric spells, and the plan was to go in as follows:

• Round 1: the elite guards paratroop down onto the water control column, and Telakin immediate-action casts feather fall to have them take no damage from the fall. They have the silence-stone with them, and will land at the end of the round. Telakin then casts defenestrating sphere to displace any adventurer directly guarding the water control column.
• Round 2: the elite guards attack anyone still on the column, with at least one of them taking a standard action to pull the water control lever. If no one is left on the column, they hold their actions to attack anyone who tries to ascend the column. By the end of the round, water is 4 feet deep on the floor of the chamber and the column is 14’ high. Telakin casts confusion to prevent coherent action on the adventurers’ part, as presumably they will be trying to advance on the column in formation. He also moves the defenestrating sphere to where it can do the most good.
• Round 3: the elite guards hold the column against anyone who tries to climb up, or take potshots with light crossbows at anyone who’s trying to tread water (suddenly rushing water is Swim check DC 15, adjusted by armor penalty). By the end of the round, water is 8 feet deep in the chamber and the column is 18’ high, making Jump checks to get topside effectively impossible. Telakin casts web in a corner of the room, trying to entangle as many adventurers as he can and leave them to drown under 40 feet of water. He moves the defenestrating sphere across the surface of the waters, tossing anyone who’s moving towards the column.
• Round 4: the giant octopus comes back into play and starts attacking anyone who is free. The elite guards continue to hold the column against anyone who wants to try to flip the lever back to “drain”, taking crossbow potshots if no one is actively trying to climb the ladder. By the end of the round water is 12 feet deep in the chamber, and the column is now 22 feet above the stone floor. Telakin snipes anyone still free and unconfused with scorching ray, magic missile, or (for anyone breaking free of the web) ray of enfeeblement. He moves the sphere to displace anyone getting close to the column’s ladder.
• Round 5: by the end of the round water is 16 feet deep in the chamber and the column is 26 feet above the floor. Telakin muahahaha’s and casts lightning bolt on the surface of the water above the web, which will deal the bolt damage in a 20’ radius from point of impact with the water.

The problem was, the players didn't QUITE cooperate. They did have most of their number on the floor within this chamber, but also left the warmage and the catfolk swordsage up top on the stone span thrusting out from the door to the doppelganger lair. That complicated matters somewhat -- I still used the invisibility sphere to get in through the door, but the defenestrating sphere wasn't as useful as I hoped. (Both PCs up top rolled surprisingly well on Fort saves, and both had feather fall rings that limited the falling damage.)

He did, however, manage to drop an Evard's black tentacles on the clustered party down by ground level, and that immobilized a huge portion of their potential firepower while his troops tried to pull the lever (but were thwarted, see below). Geert, the human swordsage, fought off the troops trying to pull the lever and then jammed his shortsword into the mechanism, doing enough damage to disable it. Telakin ended up pulling his battered troops back up top after about ten or so rounds of combat, with the party pretty wounded but Telakin having taken substantial damage as well. The catfolk swordsage, Murkarr, had managed to tumble into the corridor with him, then chose to retreat to the map room when she hit the glyph of warding and he blasted her with magic missiles. He arcane locked her in the map room, not realizing she could teleport out (which she did, taking out one more of the wounded troops in the process). Murkarr then tried to get the jump on Telakin, but rolled a 3 and a 2 on her Wolf Fang Strike attacks and cursed mightily. (The warmage managed to down Telakin with his last magic missiles immediately thereafter.)

Murkarr, at 30 hp and feeling somewhat grand, decided to chase down the remaining two elite doppel-guards who had survived their night raid on her own, not waiting for backup. She managed to catch up with one and drop him, but the other one turned, took on her likeness, and full attacked her, dropping her to 10 hp. The next turn, she rolled horribly and he got in a single attack, dropping her into the negatives. At that point...

Name: Geert of the Twilight Monastery (human swordsage 6/twilight tattoo 1 -- a DM-generated PrC similar to the tattooed monk)
Adventure: Hall of Harsh Reflections
Location: corridor outside the room with the illusory wall
Catalyst: backstabbed while trying to retreat with Murkarr's unconscious form

Geert, also able to shadow jaunt, 'ported himself up to the high door in the water control chamber to try to assist Murkarr. Although he didn't fall for the doppelganger's disguise (a good Spot roll combined with a preset code phrase gave it away), he wasn't able to get in enough damage before it had dropped him, too, to 10 hp. Geert ducked through the illusory wall, dragging Murkarr's limp form along with him, and tried to run for the water control chamber... but the doppelganger ran him down, rolled a critical threat, rolled a 20 on the crit confirm, and then rolled max damage on its attack to drop him to -12 in a single round.

With the rest of the party stuck down at the bottom, unable to teleport and lacking good ranks in Use Rope or Climb, it took them a substantial while to both realize that the two swordsages weren't coming back and then get up to the top. In the meanwhile, the surviving doppelgangers had stripped the two PC bodies of gear and posed them in a grotesque mockery of intimacy, surrounded by a circle of staring dead doppelcorpses.

I actually made my players go "Ewwwwwwww!" with my description of the latter. *grin*

Cause of Death: Two-pronged assualt from Eviscerator Beetles from the stairs and three Swords Of Kyuss from the door.

Long version: The party continued to try resting in the ziggaraut. The various disciples of Kyuss vigorously disagreed with that strategy. The Swords of Kyuss used their negative energy bursts to blast open the barricaded doors and moved in to engage the party.

Rath was the front line and the Swords, having multiple uses of negative energy, they took off about two-thirds of his hit-points before even closing to melee range. With the party split between fighting the Swords on one side and the Beetles on the other, Rath was the focus of most of the Swords blows.

After about five or six rounds of combat, Rath dropped to -8 hit points and bled-out before anyone could reach him.

Cause of Death: Failed save against the Worm Naga's slay living spell.

Kaidan was climbing down the side of the shaft, when he was hit with the spell attack. He failed and fell from the side of the shaft. Ren, the party's psion, caught his body with telekinesis and brought it to safety, and then Vox, the hobgoblin druid cast reincarnation. Kaidan is now a gnome.

The Spire is racking up a lot of kills, and they haven't even gotten to the REALLLLYY dangerous stuff yet!

The party had just made it down into the lower regions of the ziggaraut and had defeated an overworm. They decided to move towards the Fountain Room and were in for a nasty surprise when they opened the door.

Rstha, the barbarian was hit with a {i]suggestion[/i] to come in and drink the refreshing water. Ren, the half-elf psion, tried to counter the effects of the suggestion while the rest of the group attacked the worm callers. Two flmaestrikes later, Cora was a charred corpse on the floor of the chamber (-10 hp).

The party came upon the sea of worms and Ren deceded he was going to cast an energy ball into the sea and then used control energy to try to burn as much of it as possible. An enraged overworm burst forth, bit and subsequently swallowed Ren.

The crushing and acid damage finished off Ren, as well as everything he carried, including a fully-charge psi-crown, which exploded. The overworm was splattered and the rest of the party took a fair amount of damage as well.

Unfortunately, there was nothing left to raise, ressurect, or reincarnate.

Cora, armed with a shortsword capable of sneak attacking undead, closed for combat with one of the knights. Her Attack Modifier limited her success in striking the AC 30 of the Knight. The Knight, on the other hand, had little trouble hitting her. She was reduced to -13 in 3 rounds.

Unfortunately, the party had used up its' revivications. Cora, the last original member of the campaign, will be replaced by a new character.

The Age of Worms ended in deafeat for my players and has seen Kyuss ascendant:

PC Name: Ghostwolf; 21st level Warlock/1st level Enlightened Soul
Adventure: Dawn of a New Age
Location: Top of the Spire

Ghostwolf sacrificed himself in a – futile – attempt to destroy the Wormgod. Ghostwolf allowed his ally Helohm Umlocham to overload his Staff of the Magi which inflicted a massive 432 hit points of damage to Kyuss! This resulted in Kyuss casting time stop to cast harm on himself 3 times! After that Ghostwolf’s surviving companions decided retreat was the better part of valor and teleported away.

PC Name: Dominic Cornelius; 15th level Cleric of Heironious/5th level Thaumaturgist/2nd level Hierophant
Adventure: Dawn of a New Age
Location: Top of the Spire

Dominic Cornelius was beheaded by Kyuss and then resurrected via a wish scroll, a few rounds later he was killed by a Divine Blast and resurrected again by yet another wish scroll – two deaths and 2 lost levels in one battle!

PC Name: Sarina; Celestial Human 18th level Favored Soul of Heironious – Planar Cohort
Adventure: Dawn of a New Age
Location: Top of the Spire

Sarina was slain by Kyuss – Divine Blast and Horrid Wilting – and was revived by Dominic Cornelius – Revenance and True Resurrection.

PC Name: Mebad Heehaw; Half-Orc 20th level Barbarian/1st level Fighter
Adventure: Dawn of a New Age
Location: Top of the Spire

While not technically killed by Kyuss, Mebad was imprisoned under Kyuss’s tower – since the Heroes of Fate fled from the Wormgod, it is more than likely that Mebad’s fate will not be a pleasant one.

Iolo, often given to "here, let's do this! ha, it actually worked!" approaches to conflict, decided to kick-start the tactical approach to the slumbering naga by shooting it with arrows. Unfortunately, he merely lightly wounded it, so it promptly went invisible and decided to inflict some revenge.

Me: "Roll me a Will save." (For a DC of 18.)
Iolo: "Uh... 8."
Me: "Oh dear. OK. Now roll me a Fortitude save."
Iolo: *wearing a puzzled expression* "Nuts. Um. 9?"
Cleric: "I cast resurgence on Iolo."
Iolo: *rolls again* "Damn. 8."
Me: *long-suffering sigh* "Ohhh-kay. You see a shadowy serpent flicker its way across the room towards you like a column of animated smoke, fangs extended and hissing violently. It lashes itself around you, burying its fangs deeply in your neck, and as panic overwhelms you your heart bursts in your chest. You've been slain by a phantasmal killer."

The party panicked and tried to pursue, only to end up running smack-dab into Zyrxog's minions further in the cave. The naga stayed invisible through that entire combat, watching and learning, and only demanded reparations after the party had barely squeaked out a win. To allow them to progress further into the caves, it wanted Iolo's body and all his possessions... so they politely paid it off with other stuff, retreated, and got Iolo's corpse reincarnated. Into of all things (I rolled 00 on the chart, then rolled again and applied something I'd been considering for awhile) a whisper gnome half-silver dragon. Of course, as he was dead through the confrontation with the mind flayer's non-octopin minions, and he got resurrected, he's now some 4500 xp behind the rest of the party... *evil grin*

I almost whacked the goliath fighter with the same trick when the party came back for round 2, but this time the cleric's resurgence was more successful.

The party (which as of yet has no name) entered the Dark Cathedral and dealt with the two guards there without triggering the alarm. Afterwards, they entered the Hextorian wing, triggering the skeletal guards within and alerting the complex. After a long and pitched battle, they finally slew all but one of the fanatics and all but one of the skeletons- Jendy became separated from the group and was dropped by Beast. The fanatic then kept a watchful eye on her, ready with his longspear, but the cleric managed to heal her with a spectral hand. The fanatic attempted to put her back down and missed, but the remaining skeleton dropped her again while Beast kept the rest of the party distracted. She was then dragged into the battle temple by the fanatic, and when the party entered in order to save her, they were locked in by Theldrick- except for their "paladin" (secretly a warlock), who was locked outside. Theldrick ordered their surrender, but the paladin refused to cooperate and cast fog cloud to cover his hacking through the door. Theldrick then ordered the fanatic to dispatch the unconscious fighter before joining the fight, who made a coup de grace and rolled max damage, easily snuffing out what was left of her life force.

Biter (human native druid lvl 3) was devoured by Beast in TFOE after its rampage in the temple.

Lucky (Halfling Cleric of Tymora) was killed by an undead Kullen sent after the party as means of revenge after one of his party members made a critical miss, shooting poor Lucky in the back for lots of damage. Then the undead Kullen had no problems finishing the halfling off (from 6 to -11).

PC Name: Galliard (Rogue/Bard)
Adventure: Gathering of Winds
Location of Death: Shadow Web
Catalyst: Too brave and not so smart
Long Description: At 1 hitpoint left, Galliard had to leave melee. After succesfully tumbling out one elder xorns reach, he spent a standard action to cast whirling blade, not hitting either of the two xorns in the area. An instant later, the xorn moved in again and got him.

He was revivified an instant later by Rickas, favorite soul of Kord.

PC Name: Pallas (Paladin)
Adventure: Gathering of Winds
Location of Death: Bridge
Catalyst: Brave
Long Description: At few hitpoints left, Pallas valiantly defended the others from the third elder xorn. But the last full attack proved to be too much.

Rickas delayed; Galliard, just revivified, cast haste; and thus Rickas was able to reach Pallas in time to revivify.

PC Name: Galliard
Adventure: Gathering of Winds
Location of Death: Wind Duke's antechamber
Catalyst: Definetely not smart, and greedy.
Long Description: The gems were looking oh so sweet, but two full attacking reflief golems restored the tombs sanctity.

Rickas didn't have any diamonds left to cast revivify, so the costly true resurrection was needed - a just punishment for the grave robbers.

After making their way to the rope bridge in the grimlock caverns, the party battled the three guards there and dropped two of them. The third ran to warn the others, with the party in hot pursuit, and a pitched battle ensued with the 7 grimlocks in the area, and finally the grimlock chieftain himself emerged to join the fracas.
They gave the 'locks a hard time of it, but were slowly whittled down, and in the end a badly hurt Matthias wound up face to face with the chieftain. The chieftain raged and swung his greataxe, and I rolled a nat 20 (I use RPTools, and I keep all the rolls open, so when that 20 came up, everyone said "Nice knowing you, Matt."). I confirmed easily, and rolled damage, but I used the wrong expression to do so- I rolled a 10 on the d12, but it only multiplied the added +6, which wasn't nearly correct. I decided to roll again, hoping to get a low roll this time and give Matt SOME chance at living through the encounter, and what do I get this time?

A 12.

54 points of damage, and Matt was on the floor, cleaved nearly in twain.

As for deaths we've had a lot. Most grisly scene for our group was Spire of Long Shadows, followed by the encounter with Darl and his gang. The party would have been total TPK had I not pulled some punches on that night.

Oh, we have had a few deaths in the Age of Worms to date, but never have I felt the need to boast of them here. I am feeling that perhaps it is time for that to change!

From the first TPK way back in the Faces of Three Evils, my gaming group has been plagued by death. Some of it caused by nothing more sinister than a critical from a great-axe, others simply from poor party tactics and a stubborn refusal to retreat.

They are now in the Spire of Long Shadows, and while they are far from dead, they are almost exclusively feebleminded. There is no one left to teleport them out of the Zigguarat of Kyuss or heal their affliction. Only the party rogue remains in full mental capacity, and all he can really do is laugh at them.

Splurggut the Worm Naga may be dead, but the last laugh is certainly his.

PC Name: Galliard (Rogue/Bard)
Adventure: Spire of Long Shadows
Location of Death: Outside obsidian ring
Catalyst: Wacky plan, bad rolls
Long Description: After agreeing on a trade with Sruggut, Galliard, Rickas (Fav Soul) and Sama the Sorcerer teleported out. Beeing leery, Rickas wanted to cast dimensional anchor on Sruggut, but failed his save against the feeblemind gaze attack... Next in initiative order was Sruggut who cast slay living on Galliard. Sama then hectically cast another teleport back into the ziggurat... Consequently, Sruggut is free now and has a blast heading towards Cauldron...

Name: Melodious Loreseeker
Race/Occupation: Gnome/bard 1
Module: The Whispering Cairn
Where/what: In the lair of the architect, as the last member of the party witing to go back up he was hit with the sleep ray from the lurking strangler. He botched his save and was strangled while the rest of the party waited for him to come back up. Eventually two party members came back down and dispatched the beastie.

It really sucks because I had just finished doing quite a bit of conversion on his mini :( But that's the way the die rolls.

Bug and the rest of the party met with the naga in the tunnels leading to zyrxogs lair. Party cleric insults the overbearing aberration. It attacks, killing bug and driving the rest of the party off (except party fighter/wizard) who kills it.

Bug, (freshly raised) and the rest of the party (fully healed) head back to zyrxogs lair the following the yellow mold trap in the hall has been reset, the corpses of the drow guards have been taken away. Corpse of the naga is where they left it. Bug walks up to corpse of naga and kicks it. Zombified Naga rises up and bites him, he fails fort save and dies at -3 con.

perhaps it was harsh to have the Drow cleric unhallow and then animate the naga, but i figured that zyrxog would do something to re-secure his lair.

Name: Sly
Race/Occupation: Halfling/rogue 2
Module: The Whispering Cairn
Where/what: In Alastors Haunt, the rogue went forward by herself, leaving the next closet member of the party hanging on the lamp chain. She set the trap off, was knocked into the pit and subsequently devoured before the party came to find out what she was screaming about. They did get to see her remains being pulled under the spheres by some tentacles though ;).

Name: Johannsen
Race/Occupation: Dwarf/Cleric 2
Module: The Whispering Cairn
Where/what: In the Chamber of Sighs, the dwarf cleric was grappled and pulled off the edge of the walkway by a Wind Warrior.

confronted with a large black tentacular tree which has just consumed the equally foolhardy but higher AC Rogue/monk of the party, Roger charges into single combat with the monstrosity and fails to penetrate its natural armour. tree strikes back: 6 out of 8 attacks connect dealing nearly 200 points of damage, noble (demented) Roger is torn limb from limb and swallowed peicemeal at -23hp.

PC Name: Duke Crusader Pallas, Bane of Ebon, First Paladin of Pelor (Paladin 12/Wormhunter 5)
Adventure: Library of Last Resort
Location of Death: Tilagos Mountains
Catalyst: Not backing down
Long Description: Camp was made, deer hunted and roasted on a spit, yet the giant monkey steps were ignored. So the Girallion Behemoth came to investigate what was smelling oh-so-deliciously in his territory. He caught the unprepared Paladin in a grapple and within two rounds, ripped off all of his arms and legs.

Pallas was true resurrected via a scroll soon thereafter and thus could continue with his meal.

PC Name: Rickas Milnerson (Favored Soul 11 / Chosen of Kord 6)
Adventure: Library of Last Resort
Location of Death: Den of Harrowdroth
Catalyst: Failed Concentration checks
Long Description: Venturing into Harrowdroths cave, the nightmare beast couldn't see them coming - but hear quite well their casting. A Bull Rush later, Rickas found himself falling into a steamy underground lake, and was not able to make his concentration checks when trying to cast spells while swimming in the insane heat of boiling water.

Thanks to death pact, he was true resurrected an instant later, snatched the potion of fly the others had thrown down to him, and quickly left the location of his very temporary demise.

E'llysiel Callaradren: Elven Conjurer
TFoE Corridor to Battle Temple.
Doors to temple close leaving the Elf in the corridor separated from the party.
Two Teiflings come (from room 6) and pound him. Folowed by Thedrick escaping three rounds later who finishes the job.
He should have tried to hide...

Duiranin Sunstaff: Human Cleric of Pelor
TFoE Battle Temple.
Rolling a 4 on his WILL save against Hold Person followed by an overdose of Dire Ape and Spirit Weapon.

Long Description: total party wipe because after we rescued our warlock/cleric from the dopplegangers we kept on going with NO spells No wands and half of our healing gone. The pit trap took out the barbarian, it didnt hurt him because he had a ring of feather fall but he couldn't make the climb DC of 25 to get out.
The scout fell next due to 4 guys pileing on him at once then the druid fell trying to save the scout. the cleric/warlock was taken out by the spear trap(+20 to hit his ac was 22) followed by 4MM from the greater doppleganger. My wizard is the only one standing and took off after that but the DM ruled that he was captured and eaten by the illithad in the other part of the dungeon. No rolls just "your wizard is dead,god says so". I'm good with that, we shut down age of worms and now were playing Forgotten realms in the silver marches. AoW was great but none of us really got into it so nobody cried or was upset over the TPK, heck no one even argued with the dm over ANY of his ruleings to try and save there charecters. The module was wonderful but it was in greyhawk and none of us liked greyhawk and the DM was too lazy to do the conversions. It wasnt the module it was OUR table.

PC Name: Grimmig (Dwarf Figther 18)
Adventure: Kings of the Rift
Location of Death: Living Quarters in Carrion Pit
Catalyst: Tripping the Tank
Long Description: When they went into the Living Quarters where Chargarl had taken residency, they didn't have a smart plan after their Paladin was awesome blown into the pit. Grimmig stood brave against Chargarl (and his pet hound Rex, an advanced dire wolf). But as Rex tripped him, Chargarls full attack which included a critical hit proved too much.

A few of the more memorable ones from my soon-to-be wrapped up campaign:

PC Name: Adomorn (dwarf (Gold dragon bloodline) cleric 3)
Adventure: TFoE
Location of Death: Grimlock quarters
Catalyst: Pshaw, a grimlock barbarian 2? Thats like what? CR 3?
Long Description: I forget which grimlock had 2 levels of barbarian, but the one who did, I equipped with a masterwork dire pick. (C.Warrior) I always re-equip my npcs to allow for all the splat books my pcs have. Grimlock wins initiative, rages, and smacks poor Adomorn with a natural 20. Adomorn was at full hit points, when I tell him to take 78 points of damage. Needless to say he was dead.

PC name: Mishrak Dras (human fighter/rogue)
Adventure: HoHR
Location of Death: Hexagonal Room of messin with PC minds
Catalyst: Never trust a dwarf with insectile eyes
Long Description: After Adomorn's death in TFoE, an ally named Duergath (see below) took possession of the masterwork dire pick. Upon arriving in Greyhawk, Duergath shopped around looking to have it enchanted. The process would take about a week. On returning to pick it up, poor Duergath was ambushed by doppelgangers, and replaced. Having completely picked through Duergath's thoughts, the replacement knew to pick up the completed +1 Dire Pick. Fast Forward to party entering hexagonal chamber. Mishrak gets door open and sees the entire party sitting bound in chairs. Some of the party enter, but Mishrak and "Duergath" do not. A natural 20 on a flat-footed Mishrak ensues. Over 110 points. Dire Pick: 2 Party: 0

PC name: Duergath (dwarf rogue/ranger) and Shadow (half orc bar/fighter)
Adventure: Champions games
Location of death: Bozal's room
Catalyst: a trapped chest? how bad can it be?
Long Description: After killing Bozal and the Ulgarasta the group comes to Bozal's chambers. Duergath searches for traps and detects one on the chest. He attempted to disable it and thought he had it. He was wrong and the worms enjoyed eating him. The bad thing is, one round after watching his companion "swallowed", Shadow attempts to bash it open. No idea why, but the worms enjoyed him too. Epilogue: Since there was no body, the group buried Duergath's Dire Pick, presumably to keep it from killing anyone else.

There have been many many more deaths in my campaign, but these are so far the most memorable. At least until I find a way to bring that Pick back.
Edit: or until next session when the group faces the splat booked up Dragotha!

TheWhiteknife, we seem to progress all along... in our next session, it's all about Dragotha as well. What goodies did you give him from the splats? Fyi, I just toned down Bucknard's fragments a bit (+5 on saves, +10 on attack, cannot be traded more than once a round), and have rewritten Mahuudril to 21st level cleric (Death and Magic; which means disjunction to counter astral projection). Would love to hear your approach!

TheWhiteknife, we seem to progress all along... in our next session, it's all about Dragotha as well. What goodies did you give him from the splats? Fyi, I just toned down Bucknard's fragments a bit (+5 on saves, +10 on attack, cannot be traded more than once a round), and have rewritten Mahuudril to 21st level cleric (Death and Magic; which means disjunction to counter astral projection). Would love to hear your approach!

I plan on posting his splatted out stats after the fight. I would post them now, but i dont trust my players to not read it. Im super excited about this fight. I figure the group will get to him on the 24th or the saturday after. Right now, the group is engaged with the wormdrake and his gated in pit fiend buddy. (who summoned a pit fiend of his own!)They are on round 3 of the fight and Mahuudril and the remaining clerics are coming in to help out this round. After that they are just 3 nightwalkers away from big D!

I forgot a good one
Pc name: Red (fire variant elf evoker/master specialist)
Adventure:LoLR
Location of Death: The wilds of Last Resort
Catalyst: Out of the frying pan and into the fire
Long description: Red was the only pc that had not died yet in the campaign, and it was time for me to change that. The group had secured everything they thought they needed, (their Roc feather wasnt good, but they didnt know that)and they searched around for the Watchers. Darl and his gang set up an ambush for them. Long story short, the efreet was causing all kinds of havoc, charging the spread out pcs, one by one. Red saw that she was next in line to be charged and used to dimension door to get out of dodge. She chose to bamf behind Darl, thinking this would put her out of the fray. Unfortunately, the invisible Krekie was staying close to Darl to act as a bodyguard and was only a 5 foot step away from Red. One full round sneak attack later, Red had suffered her first death.

PC Name: Krivik (5th lvl Dragonborn Paladin)
Adventure: 4E conversion of Three Faces of Evil
Location of Death: The Dark Cathedral
Catalyst: The Players forgot to rest and then forgot to panic.
Long Description: The Players, newbs the lot of them, had become somewhat complacent. They had weathered many trials without fatalities.
When they killed the Faceless One and where sure the coast was clear they should have taken a long rest as they where now very beaten up but they didn't.

They faced the Ebon Aspect in a weakened state and really did not seem to give it the kind of credit it deserved. That said they had never faced a Solo before. In part the complacency probably came from what the Ebon Aspect capable of in combat. Its chance to hit was lower then a baby Dragons they had recently fought, it hit hard when it hit but they had seen just as bad before, its defences where actually low compared to the last few fights, they could hit and in fact started off with some pretty big hits.

The players failed to realize that they where in a race to the bottom in terms of hps and that, without there daily's this was pretty much an undecorated race. The players where relieved when they finally got it to blooded at around 160 hps but soon realized that they where all on the brink of death and out of healing themselves. By the time they actually seriously understood that the situation was critical it was already too late and the Paladin went down. I play with a brutal house rule that if your dead if your death save comes up 1-3 and the Paladin rolled a 3 on his first death save. With the Paladin Dead my newbs freaked out - how can this happen? No one had ever died before! They fled the combat.

Long Description: Aelar's tendency to bite off more than he can chew was ever present in our campaign. Out of the entire group, he already had the highest unconscious count and this time he skipped the "dying" phase and went straight to "dead". The stalker was beating on him for a couple rounds but his choice to move out onto the wooden planks spelt the end of him. The stalkers beat him unconscious at which point he pitched over the side and into the water filled with old rusty weapons. His unconscious body was impaled immediately.

Mace has been a long running character with this campaign. Due to real life, his player has changed numerous time. On this occasion, he was being played by someone new to tabletop gaming. In retrospect, we should have coached the player a little more about his options.

Mace, being a dwarf and a cleric of a war god, had been chomping at the bit to attack a giant, but the rest of the party had established a truce with the ones up in the Citadel. As the party came down to the lower levels to find the second key, they fell into the troglydytes trap, but escaped by some (mostly) good saving throws and some heavy arcane firepower.

As they explored further, they found Chalmgar's room, and after receiving a bull's strength from Zared, the wizard, Mace charged in with his great axe. To his credit, Mace drew first blood, but the hill giant had quite a few hit points to spare. The fighter, Groznok, came forward also, striking with his ranseur, but again, it was not enough to fell the mighty Chalmgar.

On his turn, the giant focused all his attacks on his people's hated enemy, the dwarf. Three of his attacks hit, for a total of 143 points of damage. Mace had only 105. He was dead, dead, dead-ski.

Long Description: The party took a while to get through this chapter of the campaign, stopping frequently to rest and recover. By the time they dispatched the Mother Worm (the party had already obtained the other key from the giants), they decided to teleport back to the Phylactery Vault, where Brazzamel was slugging it out with the Raam. The party decided to ambush the dragon from behind. A flurry of blasting spells left the Big Red Machine rather testy. He turned and breathed on the party for 140 points of damage. These two had less than that.

Long story: After causing the green elevator to crash, the acid beetle swarm came up and engaged the party monk, fighter and wizard who had ventured in for a closer look at the skittering goings on. The slasher was after the swarm in initiative order, so it came up, saw the rogue and druid unengaged at the far end of the hallway, and positioned itself to attack both of them. The druid had readied his torch in anticipation of attacking the swarm so was a little unprepared for the mad slasher. The first attack with the torch (as a make-shift club, I allowed 1/2 club damage + 1d3 fire) did reasonably well, so the druid didn't change out. The swarm meanwhile was doing significant damage to the rest of the party that wasn't prepared, with the monk and the fighter dropping quickly (the wizard had retreated). The rogue went to tend the downed comrades leaving the druid alone to face the slasher. Next round, druid was down and bleeding. The rogue also succumbed to the swarm leaving the wizard alone and beating a fast retreat. The rogue and monk successfully stabilized but the fighter and druid were losing points fast. The wizard had his hawk familiar distract and move the slasher away from the downed party while he ran in and forced healing potions down the throats of the monk and fighter, and tending to the rogue. (I ruled that without any obvious targets the mindless swarm wandered around the room randomly.) The druid, unfortunately, was too far gone and died of his wounds before the wizard could get to him. With the monk and fighter awake and up, the unconscious rogue and dead druid were taken up to the surface by the rest of the party. It was nearly a TPK, but fast thinking on the part of the wizard and fortunate stabilization of the monk and rogue meant only one casualty.

While engaged with the Blessed Angels that guard Lashonna, Mishrak discovered that the puny d10+10 weapons that the Angels use hurt alot more on a natural twenty followed by a confirmation. Dawn learned that Maralee's executioner's axe doesnt have to be vorpal to do a one-shot.

Edit: Kyuss next session! Hopefully I can add to this list one more time!

Cause of Death: The six avolakai priests right inside the front door of the Fortress

Long Description:

After rather handily defeating the wyvern rider and the overworms (including the one guarding the front door), the party bashed open the gates with a Bigby's Clenched Fist, then walked into the front area, only to be faced with the priests. A salvo of Slay Living spells yielded messy results. Party access to Ressurection and Clone spells had made death merely an inconvenience at this point.

Long description: Party's two front line fighters ended up on one side of a blade barrier with Kyuss himself. I hit the Barbarian even on a natural 1, not that it mattered since I rolled a 20. Grizzly bear head rolls, only to be miracled back on a round later.

Long Description: After the grizzly's head was off, Mishrak found himself alone within Kyuss' reach. He figured he could take on a full attack from the deity and survive. He was sadly mistaken as the engulf's 20d10 damage did him in. Dont know if this counts as a death as he was immediately hit with 2 close wounds spells that kept him alive.

Character - Beren - Human Figther 3
Adventure - Whispering Cairn
Cause of death - Double-teamed by the Wind Warriors in the Chamber of Sighs.

Long description: Not much more to add. The rest of the party had fled the central ring in the Chamber of Sighs, but the Fighter having just missed horribly on his last attack was alone with the two Wind Warriors. They had him surrounded (but not technically flanking) and the first one took him down with 2 hits, one from each long sword.

It was a tough encounter that took 4 attempts, and only one death is not a bad result.

Character - Elf - Fighter/Order of the Bow Initiate
Adventure - Champions' Belt
Cause of Death - Greataxe through the midsection.

Long Description - Kullen's Gang developed a serious rivalry with the group in Diamond Lake. The PC's had a few encounters with these ruffians though ultimately no one on either side was killed.

Due to actions taken by the PC's Balabar Smenk was exiled from Diamond Lake and he journeyed to the Free City with Kullen's Gang and Filge. Hearing about the large cash prize for winning the games he convinced Kullen and his men to enter.

In round two of the games the PC's finally had their chance to face the half orc barbarian and settle the bad blood between the groups. The PC's using absolutely zero tactics were nearly overwhelmed and literally running away from Kullen and his fighters.

The archer set himself up to assist the barbarian and the monk in their melee with Kullen. Both characters fled when it became obvious that Kullen was too much to handle. Kullen turned and saw the elf exposed without any melee support and charged at him. To the elf's dismay Kullen and his greataxe scored a critical hit dropping the elf into negatives. His companions were too busy fighting for their lives to stabilize him and he bled out on the battlefield.

Long Description - The party at Ekyam's request explored the underground level after their victory over Kullen's Gang. In a wildly stupid move the Healer, the Tank and a Psion decided to stay in the room for the evening (where they were for the entire session).

The rest of the group, six other PC's, found the shaft that led up to the Shrine. This encounter was very tough because Zyrxog got away in the Hall of Harsh Reflections and was here with Bozal Zahol. I also replaced the Akilith with a few Vrocks.

After room to room combat (they did not approach with enough stealth to get surprise) they finally duked it out with the main baddies in the Shrine. With only one not even touched Vrock left, the now very injured PC charged forward. The Vrock's next attack impaled the Barbarian.

Long Description - The party made it to the finale against Auric's Warband. I have a 9 character party 8 of whom are in the games. Therefore I beefed up the Warband with Golems to make the final fight especially perilous.

The Monk who seems never to learn that he is not a front line fighter charged at Auric while he was being flanked by two Golems and he was subject to numerous punishing blows from attack of opportunity. Staggered he tumbled away but not far enough. The next round Auric pulled off a Spring Attack and crushed his skull banishing him to the planes.